Abstract

The Labour government has strived to reduce poverty and inequality over the last decade – with mixed results. Overall poverty levels have fallen but the numbers in 'deep' poverty have increased. And while income and wealth inequalities have grown more slowly in the last ten years than in the previous decade, Britain is still a more unequal place today than when Labour took power.
But what does this mean for policy in the coming years? As Liberal Democrat MP David Laws asks: "If a Labour government cannot convincingly address the challenges of inequality of opportunity and income, what hope can there be for other political parties?"
Laws answers this question and others in the first of three essays on equality. Conservative MP Greg Clark offers a centre right perspective, while Labour MP Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford provide a socialist critique of what they describe as the 'liberal consensus' on the issue.